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Search for Canada’s 150th logo stirs graphic design challenge

Canadian graphic designers are flooding a new website with better ideas for a 150th birthday logo for the nation.

Graphic designers came up with logos of their own to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday, after seeing the ones the government has been showing to focus groups. This one was created by Andy Slater: "This logo focuses on Canada's bright multicultural canvas. With each colour
connecting, unity is ever present, showcasing Canada's strong backing of
multiculturalism and acceptance. "

Designer Dave Watson: "I have always loved logos with hidden gems in them (see Hartford Whalers logo).
So for my mark, I attempted to create the flag out of the letterforms. If you see it great… if you don't, it still reflects the pride we all feel as Canadians."

Designer Dominic Ayre: "I started to think about the land mass of our great country, the varied environments and how even though we are all spaced out that we are connected as individuals, as Canadians. My thought was to create a mark that really played off that idea. The citizens create the country."

Designer Greg Muhlbock: "From coast-to-cast Canadians live and thrive in ways unique to each region. Our mosaic of land, heritage and culture are not segregated by differences, but bound by a shared hope for the future. In 2017, we'll celebrate 150 years as a nation made stronger by our diversity."

Designer Jonathan Mutch: "When I started thinking about Canada Day, and how I’ve celebrated this great country on this day all my life – I instantly thought of standing amongst thousands of fellow countrymen and women to watch the spectacle that is the Canada Day fireworks show. The logo is meant to represent that feeling..."

Designer Steve Dukaczewski: "The direction was to maintain a minimal aesthetic while creating something that would have timeless appeal, evoking a familiar feel while paying homage to past identities representative of the significant milestones in Canada's history."

Proposed logos for Canada's 150th birthday that the government tested with focus groups earlier this year. (THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Design experts from across the country have stepped up to their drawing boards to find a better logo for Canada’s 150th birthday, filling up a new website with updated brand symbols for the nation.

Dismayed by a set of five proposed logos that the government sent out to be tested by focus groups earlier this year, members of the graphic-design industry are serving up suggestions to prove that Canada can do better, icon-wise.

About 30 logos in multiple colours and shapes, by some of Canada’s leading graphic designers, are being displayed on a site called The150Logo.ca.

“My first reaction, when I saw the (government) logos, was: how are these even being viewed as acceptable?” said Ibraheem Youssef, creator of the website, and a Canadian graphic designer based in Boston.

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Youssef and the other designers were startled by what they saw as the lack of imagination or professionalism in the government’s proposed logos, which some critics compared to hockey pucks, paper doilies or, in one case, a police shield.

“They’re very close to what we call in the industry ‘clip art,’ which is the lowest form of creative you can use,” said Youssef.

The website also comes after an outcry from other professionals such as Lionel Gadoury, head of the Registered Graphic Designers association, who has been urging people to get in touch with the federal Heritage department or their local MPs to demand a more professional logo — and a more serious method to select one.

“Rather than engaging Canada’s highly talented graphic design professionals, a firm that runs focus groups is being paid to manage a popularity contest,” says the letter that RGD has prepared for citizens to send to their MPs.

Youssef says the designers aren’t proposing to give away their work on the website to the federal government, but instead are intent on simply showing that Canadian designers are up to the challenge of designing something more memorable and creative for the big national birthday coming in 2017.

The alternative logos already posted on The150Logo.ca feature a wide variety of takes on Canadian iconography.

Many of them, like the government’s designs, use the maple leaf as a central motif, but with a more artistic flourish. Andrew Passas, a designer at the Taxi ad firm, envisions the number 150 created out of piles of maple leaves, while Winnipeg designer Jonathan Mutch put a maple leaf in the middle of a stylized burst of fireworks.

Jason Niles, an urban designer from Victoria, B.C., came up with an array of multicoloured dots, arranged as Canada’s capital cities appear on the map.

A couple of the designs borrow from Canada’s Centennial logo — a maple leaf created out of triangles.

Gadoury said that this 1967 logo, which fuelled his own imagination when he was 6 years old, should be setting the standard for the 150th-birthday design.

“I remember drawing and redrawing that mark and colouring it in,” said Gadoury, noting that it was probably one of his earliest memories of feeling patriotic — as well as a very early indication of his future career path.

If the federal government is sincerely interested in finding a logo this indelible, said Gadoury, it needs to find something that blends popular appeal with design professionalism.

He’s urging the government to set up a steering committee and a proper search process for a professional logo.

Mike Storeshaw, a spokesman for Heritage Minister Shelly Glover, says the logos circulated to focus groups were “preliminary concepts” — developed within government — and not intended to be seen as possible, final logos.

Storeshaw also said that the government is aware of the new website: “All feedback we've received, including that which was gathered in the focus groups, is being taken into consideration. But no decisions have been taken with respect to next steps on a logo,” he said.

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